Morning Light Figurative Painting

"Morning Light"
20 x 30

I decided to enter the "Anything Goes" exhibit by the Santa Clara Valley Watercolor Society at the Norton Gallery in Palo Alto in August. The publicity photo was due the end of June. Using one of my sketches from the Don Andrews workshop, I developed the figure and added an ethereal background. This painting is an interpretation of the figure rather than a realistic rendering of the model, Christina.

Tomorrow I will leave for Vermont and Maine. A dear friend and I will be painting in Maine for a week and then I will return to the Paquet Family Farm for the Centennial celebration. Bob will not be going with me this time. This trip will give me some additional time with family, grandchildren, and friends. I will likely not be posting until I return.

Finished "Melissa in the Morning"

"Melissa in the Morning"
22" x 30"

On Thursday evening's Southside Art Club session, I worked some more on this painting from the final day of the Don Andrew's Figurative workshop. This morning I added a few finishing touches. You can see my earlier post here. You will notice that I darkened the area next to the light on the face and shoulders. I added the suggestion of Melissa's hair piled on top of her head, and some red hues in the background on the left. My goal was to make this painting a suggestion of Melissa's beauty rather than total realism. I particularly used the design elements of shape, value, and color, along with edge treatments to achieve my goal.

I found working from life challenging and rewarding. Melissa is an excellent model and I have drawn her before at the Los Gatos Art Museum's Tuesday life drawing sessions arranged by Nancy. Nancy also took Don Andrew's class and we spent a few lunch hours together in wonderful conversation. A new friend, Patty, joined the fun. I love the connections I make among the local artists when I do art related activities. Truly our area is blessed with some very fine artists.

Final Painting from Don Andrews Workshop

"Christina"

Just a quick post. I am quite pleased, as was Don, with this painting. He told me I had really advanced during the course of the week. Christina is the lovely young woman who had lunch with a bunch of us on Friday

Final Day of Don Andrews Workshop

"Melissa in the morning"

Don's afternoon demo

Don continued his discussion of color and value, noting that all colors have a place on the value scale. Color reads best in the middle value ranges. So we use lots of middle values, and some of light and dark values if we want a colorful painting. I painted Melissa in the morning wearing a lovely scarf and drape. This painting is just partially finished. I have yet one more, but I want to do a bit more work, as it's almost complete, and then I will post it.

In the afternoon, Don did a final demo on color values. You can see that he also sketched Melissa in the morning from a different position. Don probably painted this in less than 20 minutes so it's not one of his finished pieces, but impressive just the same.

I had another lovely lunch hour chatting with two fellow artists and Christina, one of our models. We sat under the tree at the Rosicrucian Museum. I will be keeping in touch with both Pat and Nancy. Nancy and I figured out our connection; she arranges the life drawing at the Los Gatos Art Museum that I attended on Tuesday afternoons in the fall. I hope to get back to doing that.

Day 4 of the Don Andrews Workshop

Partially complete "Melissa"

Don Andrews demos adding color for the light areas of the painting

Now things are beginning to come together for me. Don started the day demoing how to achieve hard, soft, and lost edges. This alone was worth the price of admission! In the afternoon he put it all together with a demo: (1) wet the paper and created colorful lights; (2) add form to the figure with a mid-tone value and create the edges as you go; (3) sandwich the figure with the background, creating interesting shapes. All the while we keep rewetting the sections we are working on.

We got to do two paintings today, one of each model doing 20-minute poses with 5-minute breaks. The afternoon session was the longest, spanning over two hours. I did Melissa in the afternoon on a full sheet. This snapshot is not the greatest and doesn't show a bit of the left side of the piece. I am fairly happy with it to this point. I need to find more edges by darkening some edges, do more work on the figure, and Don advises me that I should keep the leftmost white shape and get rid of the whites to the right. I had a glorious time doing this piece.

Lunch was also fun. Several of us ate at wrought iron tables under a luscious tree on the grounds of the Rosicrucian Museum. Then three of us walked briefly. The time flies when you are having fun.

Day 3 of Don Andrews Workshop

"Christina"

Don started off the day having us do backgrounds and discussing color. We did 4 5-minute poses on scrap paper making a quick figure drawing with the brush and trying different backgrounds. After a quick demo, we did a quick painting. In the afternoon Don talked about skin colors and backgrounds, and how we must subordinate the backgrounds to show off the focal point on the figure. When I paint in a workshop, I always seem to be one lesson behind. "Christinaa" is my afternoon piece. I love to fill the page with the figure, thinking I could put some shapes in the background, but Don told me that the figure would need to be smaller to do that, so I should leave the background as is. Somehow I missed the size element in the demo. No doubt tomorrow Don will be discussing something more, and I will finally begin to get how to do shapes in the background. Meanwhile, I followed Don's advice to deepen the throw fabric and lose some edges there so the cloth does not compete with the face and top of the figure. On the next painting, I want to think about losing more edges on the figure on the shadow side. I do like how the hair drifts off into green. Don is an amazing instructor.

I had a great time and have made a new friend, Pat. We had our bag lunch in the gardens of the amazing Rosicrucian Museum and then walked in the neighborhoods during our hour-long lunch break. Turns out she has similar interests in the dancing and is taking Argentine Tango and Salsa dance lessons.

Don Andrews Workshop

Day 1 pose, charcoal on newsprint - 10 minutes

Day 2 pose, charcoal on newsprint - 5 minutes

Day 1 pose with shadow and background on drawing paper

Brief post to keep you update on the Don Andrews workshop. Don is a wonderful teacher, very kind and encouraging. I like the way he breaks up the day. Everyday we have 2 models for the 16 or so artists who are divided into two groups with easels on tables around the model. The models switch between the two groups, and today we also had one different model than yesterday.

Don teaches in stages. Each day we do fast warmups on newsprint. I chose to use vine charcoal as I am very used to sketching with it and it erases easily. We indicate shadow shapes. Don has short demos morning and afternoon. First he focused on light and shadow, indicated on our rough sketches. Next he showed us how he adds the mid-tone - shadow in watercolor and background also in mid-tone value to set off the lights. Up to this point, which you see here, I thought I did pretty well. The piece on low quality paper looks like a 2-dimensional form. Then he showed us how to add color to the lights before he added the shadow forms. He wets his paper thoroughly and dives in with color. We are all amazed at how much paint and color there is, yet later they turn out to be very light, luminous forms. The page is sopping wet when we start. This is where it gets tougher for me. Looks so easy when Don does it, but I'm struggling with some new techniques.

Today Don showed us how he adds granulation, his term for mixing colors on the page. He gives an amazing demonstration of how one can easily change watercolor, AS LONG AS IT IS WET. He painted green. Don't like it, throw rose over it. Too cool, paint over with orange. He did this to one patch for a dozen colors with lovely results each time. Went too dark, wipe it off and start again. I struggled onward. Some parts look good. Don keeps telling us we are unlikely to produce masterpieces this week -- he is right. This afternoon Don showed us how he sometimes starts with a lovely grey and mixes warmer colors into it on the page. Beautiful results, at least for Don! Again, some of my painting came out well.

Though painting like this does not come easy for me, the class is really worthwhile. Check out Don's work here:
http://www.donandrews.net/Gallery.htm
I can't wait for tomorrow when I get to try again!

Can't resist the Don Andrews Workshop

Start of the demo painting by Don Andrews

I attended the free demo by Don Andrews, compliments of the Santa Clara Valley Watercolor Society. Anyone can attend the demos, including non-members. The workshop has been booked for months, but several people have dropped out at the last minute. I did not plan to attend as I have been so busy with travel and cycling education. However, I couldn't resist this opportunity, so I decided tonight to attend the workshop..

Don is charming and humorous, and I love his work. Like other amazing artists, he just dives in with lots of water and color. I was fascinated by his development process. You can check out his work here:
http://www.donandrews.net/
I'm sure I will learn a lot from the master.